Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-02-24
Letter from Hon A. G. LebrOke.
ON THE QUESTION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

FoxCRoFT, FEB. 10, 1887.
Dear Sir -
Lam indebted to you for your kind ex-
pressions in inviting me to be present before
the Committee to ask for repeal of the law
authorizing capital punishment. | should
have answered before. but still hoped it
might be possible for me 10 come. But
cannot do so No other person than myself
can so much regret my constrained absence
from the post where I could perform II great
moral duty. though might not perform it
in very efficient manner.
Since the dawn of civilization there has not
been a more striking illustration of the entire
inutiliy of capital punishment in the attempt
| to protect human life BY the execution of the
criminal, than in Maine in the years and
months which have elapsed since the act of
| 1888, to restore capital punishment, took
| effect
| Every moon that wakes and wanes records
its new CHASTITY details of from one to two or
more murders or homicidal butcheries. Some
| of these have been murders which have en-
| braced the reasonable element of having
been committed by members of the family
| upon those who were of the same household
| in manner and under circumstances the most
revolving. The public WAYS, the fields, and the
forests have each filled their quota to make
up this army OF manslayers-a dreaded pro-
| cession.
| The inhrmity Of human tribunals has 10
| these years and months condemned to the
gallows some persons Of whose guilt Of tie
crime with which they were charged, there
was the gravest doubt. Others about whose
| guilt there was not = shadow of doubt, have
been convicted, and the State as to them hal
.hu1dered and rscoiled from executing the
bloody mandate of the law.
| If the community had no other protection
than these statutes threatening the execution
| of offenders, human life would surely hang
on brittle thread. Most of those who com
nit murders secretly expect to escape de
lection. and they and the more bold and ded
ant jeer at capital punishment laws. and
mock at gibbets.
As after the late war men had heard anc
read of and seen so much slaughter, the
moral sense of the community seemed to bs
blunted as to the sanctity of human life. so
| since the State has set anew the example OF
taking life under the forms of law, and begur
gravely to discuss the question of the mode
| of execution, whether by hanging or poison
| or otherwise, the vicious within our owr
borders are giving practical illustrations and
object lessons upon the various modes OF
| terminating human existence by wicked VIC
| lence.
In early days in England, when larcen,
of property OF greater value than IL pence
was punished capitally, the motley crowd,
who witnessed the executions committed
more larcenies and picked more pockets righ
under the shadow Of the machinery Of execu
ton, than on any other occasion in the year
| Human life should be held sacred and the
commonwea in the majesty of its power
should show its plenary strength to restrair
individuals from doing wrong in some othel
way than in committing the very act upor
the offender which the offender has com
mitted upon somebody else.
The increase of homicides in Maine sincs
the act of 1883 is alarming. Maine has il
that time made up record quite as sanguin
airy a. some of those States of the Unior
whose moral condition We so honestly bemoan
Fraternally you're,
| A. G LEBRoKE.